Theology

The tendency toward the total privatization of religious life is particularly strong today, especially in the new generation.

Many times we don’t have the patience to wait for an answer to our prayers, and other times we don’t even know when we've received it. For the ten Boom family, the answer to some prayers came 100 years later.

From an early age, we are bombarded with messages telling us to stand out, to make something of ourselves, to do something great with our lives. Many times the voices are religious in nature: God has great plans for us, He will do truly remarkable things with our lives.

I talked to Pastor Nicu Butoi about the role that religion could play in treating depression and hopelessness, at the end of a series of evangelistic presentations he gave to a full-house before the pandemic.

Let the one who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on their God. – Isaiah 50:10

Any large-scale phenomenon, such as a pandemic, activates our instinct to preserve our state of being—especially when we feel like we are losing it.

How did I begin to believe in You?

“Children cannot live according to God’s ways if they do not know God’s Words.” This is a truth in which Christian parents can ground their efforts to help their children build their faith in God, in order to later avoid the path of prodigal sons.

"The fire and wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" (Genesis 22:7).

In a society with a pragmatic mindset, any kind of belief is subject only to practical judgments. Effectiveness, usefulness, and utility are the basic criteria by which actions, deeds or beliefs are valued.

The Bible is not the product of an event or a circumstance, but of time, study and especially of the journey that humanity took on its way to its development. But could it be that all the time that has passed has also eroded its relevance? How much confidence can we still have in the Bible, in the 21st century?

I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. – Matthew 3:11

Centuries ago, the German theologian and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz used the term “theodicy”1 for the first time—“God’s justification”. By theodicy, Leibniz meant the ultimate reality of justification, once and for all, of God and all of His ways before the whole universe.

Few things can pierce a parent’s heart as painfully as their children’s decision to walk away from God. Pain, guilt, shame and the feeling of failure are the crushing burdens which parents of prodigal sons carry, while still wavering between hope and discouragement.

When war kills not one but three of your children, what is there left besides hatred?